Invisible to Most
by Love-in-the-Stars
Summary: BBC Sherlock. Despite knowing almost everything about his partner, Sherlock had somehow missed this bit.


Pairing: Sherlock/John or just Gen  
>Spoilers: None<br>Warning: Brief mention of contemplation of suicide  
>Word Count: 1021<br>Summary: Despite knowing almost everything about his partner, Sherlock had somehow missed this bit.

xxxxxx

It comes out by accident. John looks a little surprised at himself but not embarrassed and that more then anything makes Sherlock's mind stutter. Somehow, despite knowing almost everything else about his partner, he had missed this.

Sherlock knew that John had had a hard time of it after coming home, he missed the war, that was expected, and he had nothing left to him. For months John had been at loose ends and struggled to find that place to fit.

Sherlock had understood that but never really grasped the meaning behind it.

Until now. Now that it's been shoved in his face by admittance from the source and Sherlock is stunned. His whole being is frozen by the thought of it, by the utter wrongness of something like this.

Just the thought, the thought of the women laying dead in the photographs spread out between them being John, _his John_, that thought hurts like a psychical pain. Even worse is the way that Sherlock's cursed mind fills in the blanks, creates the scene as it must have been before he even met the doctor.

He sees, in his vibrant mind's eye, John freshly home in a bland military gifted flat. He's seated at a cheap wooden desk with drawers and lying on that desk is the doctor's red and black laptop. Resting against the chair is the cane that would later become obsolete but at that moment is only a blatant reminder of what John had seen as an utter failure.

John, looking worn and fragile at the edges, sits in that chair. The fingers of his left hand tap a pointless pattern on the top of his closed computer and he stares at the wall blankly. His other hand rubs gently and uselessly at the ache in his leg.

At the far edge of the desk sits his phone, the hand-me-down with another's name and the product of that other's failure. It has tellingly few names and numbers in the phone book. Everyone he knows is either dead or still fighting only this time he's not there to watch their back or keep them alive.

The bed at the corner is unkempt, blankets tossed this way and that, a sure sign of the nightmares that causes a person to thrash at night. The fact that John has not bothered to make it up is telling, his ingrained military neatness should be screaming at him but instead John sits still and stares at the middle distance.

He's lost in this world of peace and empty air. He has no reason or purpose here. He's a doctor trained for war and that has no place here.

This past John, one that Sherlock imagines so clearly, sighs and lets go of his leg to ease open the top drawer. Hiding within is the hand gun that had saved his own and other's lives only months before.

John had always held this gun close. Assault rifles were all well and good but sometimes the compact size of a handgun won out over sheer firepower and the laser scope of rifles.

He takes it out now and turns it over in his hands, metal cool and somehow soothing. It reeks of danger and he briefly imagines the grit of sand between his fingers and the grip before the sense imagine fades again.

He holds it and wonders…is tempted…so very tempted but eventually, when his left hand trembles tellingly, the gun goes back in the drawer and John stands, painful and labored but he stands.

"Sherlock?"

The scene that has grown in his mind vanishes at the sound of John's voice saying his name. Instead, Sherlock looks across at his partner seated in the other arm chair, sees him as he is today. Calm and settled, still broken but healing and Sherlock has a flash of insight that makes the growing nausea of his own thoughts start to fade.

But that's not enough, he needs to know for certain. Needs to know that scene won't ever come to pass another time.

"You're not anymore." He says firmly, not sounding like a question but John has always read him so well.

"Suicidal? No, not for quite a while now." The doctor states it like a fact, not ashamed and even smiling a slight bit. "I have no reason to be."

Sherlock lets out a breath, gusting across the space between them. "Because of me."

To anyone else he would have sounded rather unimpressed but John only smiles wider, something like pleasure in his eyes. "Right."

"Because I give you a purpose."

"Because you saved my life."

Sherlock's heart does this funny thing in his chest and he nods sharply, thoughtfully. "Good. That's…good. I rather suspect that would bother me, if you were."

"Of course." John's voice is soft, touched and gentle, then lightens for his next words. Teasing. "Who else is going to make sure you stay alive?"

Logic states that Sherlock should say something about surviving just fine before him but the truth of it hits him then and instead he says nothing. There is a difference between surviving and being alive, Sherlock just had never known it before now, before John.

John's eyes say he understands anyway, which is likely true, John always understands and even if he doesn't he tries to. The doctor gets up then, easily and without a trace of a limp. "Want some tea?"

Sherlock nods and John gives him another smile, one of those smiles that feel exclusively his. He heads into the adjoined kitchen, dodging experiments and various implements with practiced ease as Sherlock watches. He watches John handle the kettle and the water and the cups and finds himself grinning too. He is filled with satisfaction over how John's hand is absolutely steady and his weight evenly settled between legs.

So, alright then. Sherlock has learned a few new things about his best friend but that doesn't matter. It all evens out in the end. They saved each other and will always save each other.


End file.
